


not before everything

by TolkienGirl



Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [22]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, Episode: s01e22 Devil's Trap, Gen, Protective Sam Winchester, The Crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28583448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Sam has broken his clavicle, his tibula, his wrists, his ankle. All of these healed.(What if there is something in you that doesn’t?)
Relationships: Azazel & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & John Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777720
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	not before everything

**Author's Note:**

> Final installment! Thanks for reading & commenting. I really appreciated the love for such a slight little project. Here's to more substantive contributions in the future!

Sam knows broken bones.

The betrayal of the body, the panic of the mind, the way flesh and skin do their feeble best to guard what should have been stronger than both. If one limb is hurt, the other three curl around it. The whole, the members, the _pain._

They used to make it a competition, him and Dean. Who had the most inappropriate injuries for their age. When they had real plaster casts, and not just Dad’s makeshift splints for lesser things, Dean always won for most obscene scrawl. Sam was embarrassed, but also amused. Doesn’t that just sum them up? Never fitting in, except with each other, until Sam’s moral compass won out over every other direction of his heart, and he said he had to go.

_The crash—_

Sam has broken his clavicle, his tibula, his wrists, his ankle. All of these healed.

(What if there is something in you that doesn’t?)

_You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you._

The demon knows nothing. A dangerous fool.

_Not like you need them—_

Clavicle, tibula, talus, ulna. These are the bones Sam has broken.

 _As long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you_. That’s what the demon doesn’t know.

_The thunder—_

Anger drives, but fortune favors the patient. The rawness of the blade is better suited to Sam’s heart and to his moral compass, than is the swift catastrophe of a bullet. In holding back—in letting go, he failed, as far as the demon is concerned. He let the _demon_ go. He lived in his pain for a moment longer than the demon or _Dad_ could understand.

After that…after that, there has to be something. A reward for the patient, the brave, the brother.

After it’s over, he’ll live with his crimes. But not before everything. _I want us to be a family again._

_That’s all we have—that’s all I have—_

Sam doesn’t know which of his bones are broken. Hell, could be most of ‘em. Hell, they could all be damned for the things they’ve fought.

Who knows what powers exist beyond the veil of the world? He’s always wanted to believe in a greater good.

_The pain—_

Here is what Sam knows: broken bones, life alone, life with Dean. Road motels, worn-out vinyl, ink-stains from the local paper, Led Zeppelin, paperback books, salt, blood, the dread dusty smell of death, Metallica, burnt oil, hot leather, wind through the windows, Dad and Dean.

Dean, Dean, Dean.

Sometimes you come back from the dead. Sometimes you don’t die at all. Sometimes—

When the semi plowed into them Sam didn’t even feel it. He _heard_ it, and his whole body reverberated and shattered like a sound-wave, nothing more.

_He opens his eyes. The demon is gone; another is here. Sam couldn’t pull the trigger. Or—_

_He could have, and he chose different. He chose the raw edge. The long road._

_He chose everything._


End file.
